it does seem miss merkel and president obama did put past their differences on the nsa spying. they were aligned. >> reporter: they are not together on nsa spying and made that plain and ukraine is the issue as angela merkel said. that dominated their meeting, and that situation is getting worse, not better. two helicopters, ukrainians helicopters shot down by pro-russian militants there. you had 38 people killed in odessa in a fire. you had other skirmishes with four people losing their lives. you have ukrainian forces trying to eject some of those pro-russian militants from some of the positions they have taken up in eastern ukraine and merkel and the president at the white house said if russia doesn't stop interfering in ukrainians' internal affairs in advance of the may 25th elections they will consider more serious sanctions than they have so far. >> russian leadership must know that if it continues to destabilize eastern ukraine and disrupt this month's presidential election, we will move quickly on additional steps, including further sanctions that will impose greater co